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His Ride
A Love Of Racing
vBy Rob Nielsen
Nebraska native Gale Vogt’s called Yankton home for around two
years now.
But well before that, Vogt was making the rounds on dirt tracks
throughout the upper Midwest.
Recently, the long-time driver sat down with His Voice to discuss
his success on the track, his love of racing and the community that
makes racing possible.
Late Model
Racing has always been a family thing for Vogt.
“My dad raced for years over in Stuart, Nebraska and Winner, South
Dakota,” Vogt said. “When I got into Junior High, I raced go-karts for a
couple of years.”
In high school, he raced late-model part-time during high school at
tracks in Lake Andes and Stuart before taking time off for engineering
school.
After school, Vogt raced street-stock for a few years before getting
back into late-model racing.
He said that he even remembers when he picked up his first latemodel car.
“I picked up my first late-model on the day that Dale Earnhardt
died,” he said.
After racing throughout the state of Nebraska, Vogt started working
in Yankton — where he moved two years ago — and started racing
regularly at Wagner.
Over the past five seasons at Wagner, Vogt has accumulated three
championships and two runner-up finishes.
Vogt said he hasn’t seen too many differences between racing in
Nebraska and racing in South Dakota, except for regulations.
“The competition is about the same,” he said. “It’s just different rule
packages are about the only difference.”
He said this took a little getting used to.
“Down in Nebraska, most of the late-model racing had been with
limited engines,” he said. “They allow a little more up here because we
10vHISVOICEvJULY/AUGUST 2018
try to combine with the WISSOTA sanctioned series. That took a bit of
getting used to.”
In addition to the upper Midwest, Vogt said he’s raced as far away as
Lakeside Speedway in Kansas.
#1
For the last year and a half, Vogt has been running with a latemodel Lazer Chassis emblazoned with a number one that he bought
used.
“We really got it dialed in toward the end of last year and started out
fairly strong this year,” he said.
However, the new car hasn’t been totally without issue.
“We’ve had some fuel issues a couple of nights,” he said. “Also a lot
of rain outs this year. … I had a lot of work projects going over the
winter and we had a lot more to do to the car. We got started a little bit
later than I like because of the weather and some other things..”
While the chassis was bought used, Vogt said he put in his own
engine and drivetrain.
He added that there’s a lot of work to keep the car running in top
condition.
“There’s really a lot of adjustment to these cars in the late-model
class,” he said. “It has a four-bar suspension. There’s lots of various
settings that you can set that at. It has a J-bar … and you have a lot of
adjustment with that. Shocks, springs and there’s really a lot that I can
adjust and a lot of things you can do to get yourself in trouble too. I
enjoy the challenge of it.”
This year Vogt is racing in Wagner as well as part of the Tri-State
Series which runs on regional tracks in South Dakota, Iowa and
Nebraska.
Vogt said he has a small but dedicated crew that works with him
during races.
“I work on it during the week,” he said. “At the track, there’s usually
two to three guys that will help me out.”
He added that other racers tend to help each other out more often
than not.
“There’s a crew that helps my cousin race a B-mod there,” he said. “If